358 DISAPPEARANCE OF TWO HUNTERS, 



certain, that our forest brethren were ever hi 

 fear and agitation, during our sojourn among the 

 sea-coast race. They used to go off to hunt, but 

 always together, and never strayed far, so that we 

 were much surprised on the morning of the 13th, to 

 learn that Karias and Louison had been absent all 

 night, having departed on the previous evening in 

 the hope of finding a deer. Greatly puzzled were 

 all to account for their mysterious absence, particularly 

 as the day wore on, and they did not return. Three 

 conjectures divided the opinions of the party : — First, 

 that they had possibly fallen upon the track of deer, 

 and in the ardom* of pursuit been carried farther than 

 they intended, or lost the right direction in which to 

 return ; but this view was imperatively negatived by 

 some, w^ho m"ged, and truly, that in their native 

 forests an Indian never by any chance misses his 

 way ; they forgot that here the case was widely dif- 

 ferent ; that of the many tokens which, by instinctive 

 and educational observation, guide these children of 

 nature in traversing their own woods, here they had 

 few or none. 



The next supposition was, that irresistibly incited 

 by their fears of the Esquimaux, to which we were 

 no strangers, they had suddenly deserted the party 

 with the intention of gaining the banks of the 



